Increase golfing fun by design

John K. Millhouse

Golf is adding to its already-considerable popularity. From Tiger to Sergio
to the Ryder Cup, golf stories are filling the sports pages and sometimes
even the front page. Some estimates suggest that every year, 2 to 3 million
new players try the game.

Unfortunately, it seems like a similar number leave the game each year. The
industry can do more to help newcomers stick with the game. Golf-course
architects are in a unique position to help make golf more fun for novices
by creating designs that are less punitive to beginners but still deliver
the challenges that serious players demand.

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Improving playability
Perhaps the greatest cliche, in golf-course design is that a course must be
challenging for the low handicapper, yet manageable for the duffer. This
propaganda is probably in the brochures of 90 percent of today's designers,
and the sentiment is hardly new. Promotional material for a Donald Ross
design that opened almost 70 years ago refers to a "golf course that will
command the admiration of professional and amateur alike...furnishing the
maximum excitement and the minimum of pain to golfers of every handicap."
Rest assured that as long as designers exist, they will continue to express
this platitude.

Despite the hackneyed nature of the sentiment, it is nonetheless true. The
goal is to balance the design so that the average or even the poor player
can enjoy the hole, and the scratch golfer or professional still face a
challenge.

* Tees. The most obvious way to accomplish this goal has been to create an
array of teeing areas that can vary the length of a hole to match the skill
level of the player. Robert Trent Jones Sr. initially developed long "runway" tees for this reason. Today, courses typically use a series of individual
teeing areas rather than one long "runway." The effect is the same,
however. On a course measuring 7,000 yards from the rear tees, the forward
tees may measure only 5,000 yards. When a project's budget permits, I
prefer to have three intermediate sets of tees. That allows us to fine-tune
the course distance to a length appropriate for almost every golfer.

In addition to yardage variations, multiple tees provide tremendous
positioning flexibility. The most obvious situation you can address with
this flexibility is the forced carry over water. In certain situations, you
can place rear tees behind a hazard, confident that better players will
have no trouble with the carry. For the forward sets, simply place them on
the opposite side of the hazard to avoid the trouble altogether.

You also can use tee position more subtly. For example, imagine a
dogleg-right par 4 with a bunker guarding the inside of the dogleg. The
better player eyes this bunker as a challenge, determining whether it can
be carried or how close to play to it. For less-skilled players, the bunker
may be a more imposing obstacle. To reduce the difficulty and ease the
intimidation of this situation, you can "fan" the successive tees slightly
to the left to provide a more direct line to the green that is less
encumbered by the bunker.

* Hazard placement. Beginners tend to have difficulty getting the ball
airborne. When they do, they tend to slice. From simple observations like
this, we can derive design solutions that help create a more user-friendly
course. Hazard placement is one way to do this.

Place lateral hazards so that an alternate path around the trouble is
available for the beginner. Because of the tendency of beginners to slice
to the right, it's best to place the majority of the trouble on the left.
This philosophy is completely consistent with challenging good players, who
are much more likely to miss to the left than to the right. Despite the
simplicity of these concepts, an inexplicable number of courses ignores
them.

- Water hazards. Curtail or eliminate forced carries over water. For
beginners, as well as veteran high handicappers, the game is difficult
enough without a series of heroic shots over vast expanses of lake.

The absence of forced carries does not necessarily result in a course that
is boring for low handicappers. The challenge for good players usually is
not sending their ball across water, but rather in delivering it accurately
to the target. Therefore, flanking the green with the water hazard, rather
that placing it directly in front of the green, opens a path for beginners,
while maintaining the challenge for the scratch golfer.

The amount of water you introduce into the design must relate to the market
the golf course is targeting. The quantity and position of water features
for a resort course that wants to gain a reputation as "the Monster" would
be completely different than for a daily-fee course that wants its players
to enjoy themselves and look forward to returning the next week.

As I mentioned earlier, in almost all cases, we strive to place most of the
water on the left so that it is less punitive to the typical slicer.
Positioning two-thirds or more to the left is advisable.

- Bunkers. The bunkering of a course should feel balanced, yet accommodate
the tendency of most players to slice. Therefore, be careful not to place
too many bunkers on the right side of a hole. We usually use a guideline of
60 percent on the left and 40 percent on the right.

To minimize the damage a bunker in that position can do to an average
player's score, we sometimes position them so that they are "directional"
in nature. As this suggests, their purpose is to provide the player with
clues as to the direction they should play. For example, on a dogleg left,
we might position a directional bunker on the outside of the dogleg on the
right side of the fairway. The bunker might be well beyond the reach of
most players' tee shots, but still serve two purposes. First, it helps
define or "turn" the dogleg. Second, it may be in play for a long hitter,
providing some challenge to good golfers.

Make greens flexible
The design of the green complex also is important in the flexibility and
playability of a course. We often orient the axis of the green surface so
that it is diagonal to the intended line of approach. This configuration
allows us to provide varying degrees of difficulty depending upon the
position of the flag. The front portion of the green can be left open and
accessible to a run-up shot, while the rear portion of the green may be
guarded by sand, grass hollows, mounds or water.

Be sure to give proper attention to the elements surrounding the greensite
and how they affect play. Usually, our goal is to create a design that
collects and contains balls close to the putting surface through the use of
bunkering and contouring. Because the scratch player is frequently on the
green in regulation, we believe our job is to help funnel the
higher-handicap player's ball toward the putting surface so that he can
remain competitive with a chip and a putt.

The golf course as art
Despite our best efforts to reduce the pain beginners may experience as
they learn the game, a certain amount of frustration on the links is
inevitable. During some rounds, the only consolation will be enjoying the
company of your foursome and the beauty of the environment.

As designers, we can greatly influence the player's surroundings. We should
strive to be artists, as well as engineers. The golf course is our canvas.
Our palette includes the topography and vegetation, and how we choose to
modify them. We can paint exquisite landscapes with verdant fairways and
starkly white bunkers. Trees can frame and direct vistas. The shimmering
beauty of lakes and streams can distract a discouraged golfer even as they
consume his golf balls.

Designers should be more cognizant of their potential to enhance nature's
beauty. They should review a preliminary course routing not only to
determine its effects on play, but how it fits the existing terrain; how
the shadows at dawn and dusk interplay with the contours and tree canopies;
and how it takes advantage of vistas that may be available. Designers
should seriously consider modifications that will benefit the aesthetics of
the course, even if they require some tradeoff with respect to the course's
length or strategy. Far more players will appreciate the additional beauty
than will mourn the loss of a subtle point of strategy or a few yards on
the scorecard.

One way to achieve dramatic effect on the course is by using native plant
material. In Scotland, the local fescue grasses, as well as shrubs such as
heather and gorse, grow in the roughs in an almost untended fashion. Their
rugged appearance provides stark visual contrast with the closely mown
fairways and greens. Here in the United States we have our own native plant
materials, ranging from grasses to cactus, that can perform a similar role.
The key to successfully introducing these elements into the design is to do
so where they provide a feast for the eyes without unduly punishing the
golfer.

By balancing the various elements I have described, you can offer new
golfers more enjoyable experiences and perhaps encourage them to become
enthusiasts for life. You also can create a course that fills its niche in
the local golf market while catering to a range of golfing ability.